Check out our official podcast, Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk! A podcast all about the latest tabletop roleplaying game news! From D&D and Pathfinder to the latest indie games, it won't necessarily be accurate, or informative, or even competent, but we will try to have fun!

If you've been following along with the Pathfinder 2nd Edition playtest news, you're in for a treat over the coming days. Paizo has very kindly sent me the character sheets of all six of the playtest characters, and I'll be sharing them with you one at a time over the next week or so! We'll start today with Fumbusthe goblin alchemist.

But first, before we delve into the first character, here's a quick word from Paizo's Mark Seifter:

"Since the announcement of the Pathfinder Playtest, we here at Paizo have been running demos of the game at select shows, using six of our iconic characters to showcase the new rules of the game. By now, countless spoilers have been uncovered from these characters, but we are pretty sure there are a few surprises left to be uncovered. Well, get ready to dig in, because for the first time ever we are going to show off the sheets for all six of these characters.

We have all your favorite familiar iconics, Kyra the cleric, Valeros the fighter, Merisiel the rogue, Ezren the wizard, Seelah the paladin, and of course, Fumbus the goblin alchemist… hang on there, Fumbus is actually brand new to the Pathfinder Playtest! Each of the characters comes with a new sketch by Wayne Reynolds and enough information to play the character in a demo. I should note that these sheets are early drafts and while a few things have changed, the rules are mostly correct, even if the layout and look of the sheets is nothing like what you can expect to find when the game launches on August 2nd. Finally, these sheets reference a lot of the rules we have already previewed in our blogs over at Paizo.com (which you can also find summarized right here on ENWorld), so if you are confused on some of the topics, hop on over and catch up on all the news."

And now... on with the show! First up is Fumbus, the goblin alchemist.

"As an alchemist, Fumbus is all about making and throwing bombs, though he can do relatively decent damage with his dogslicer when he catches the target flat-footed to take advantage of the backstabber trait, especially against foes like zombies weak against slashing. He’s chosen both of the bombs that deal persistent damage, which between the fire and the acid can stack up to quite the damage over time, particularly on a critical hit, which he’s fairly likely to achieve targeting touch. What is most interesting is that he can make a few extra alchemical items during the game, usually on-the-fly in the middle of a fight. This gives him the flexibility to be the star of nearly any encounter."

Stay tuned, as tomorrow it's the turn of Kyra, the human cleric! And right at the end, I'll give you a handy PDF of all six, so don't worry about trying to turn these images into a PDF. I'll do it for you!

Honestly, I was a bit reluctant to make the switch to "Pathfinder 2" (will that be the official name), but seeing this character sheet, is encouraging.

To be honest, it is the little things often overlooked, like the gear list showing items that are ready versus those that are stowed, which I can surely see helping minimize arguments between GM and Players, especially when PCs enter a friendly town, and their weapons and stowed first.

I also like the rules reference, will it come as standard with pregens?

I like the fact that alchemist's fire and acid are not hideously overpriced now. Interesting that they have changed the alchemist to actual use alchemical items for bombs rather than a proprietary mechanic.

I like the fact that alchemist's fire and acid are not hideously overpriced now. Interesting that they have changed the alchemist to actual use alchemical items for bombs rather than a proprietary mechanic.

The playtest has gone over to a Silver-based economy, so 3gp is equivalent to 30gp in old Pathfinder. That said, it's my understanding that the Alchemist has a daily crafting allotment for these academical items and typically won't need to worry about purchasing them.

The DC 20 flat check to remove persistent damage seems like a typo; It's my understanding that a flat check is just a D20 roll, and only curing it on a nat 20 seems rather poor. Perhaps it should be DC 10?

The DC 20 flat check to remove persistent damage seems like a typo; It's my understanding that a flat check is just a D20 roll, and only curing it on a nat 20 seems rather poor. Perhaps it should be DC 10?

The flat check is just for it going out naturally, i.e without any player intervention. In the actual description for the Alchemist's Fire you can see you (or an ally) can end the damage with a single action.

The flat check is just for it going out naturally, i.e without any player intervention. In the actual description for the Alchemist's Fire you can see you (or an ally) can end the damage with a single action.

Sure, but that's not the one I'm concerned about. I'm worried about the persistent damage from the acid flask.

As much as PF remains the crunchy D&D, I must say the functional and clean tag terminology goes a long way to address the mechanical weight of the system.

Much, much better than the "natural language" approach of D&D 5 (which is a lighter ruleset, so it can certainly go with a less "gamist" language, but I'm one of those people to whom rules must be rules and background is a separate thing. Not that you can't have rules filled with background faithfulness, but rules, to me, must be clear, above anything else).

Honestly, I was a bit reluctant to make the switch to "Pathfinder 2" (will that be the official name), but seeing this character sheet, is encouraging.

To be honest, it is the little things often overlooked, like the gear list showing items that are ready versus those that are stowed, which I can surely see helping minimize arguments between GM and Players, especially when PCs enter a friendly town, and their weapons and stowed first.

Agreed; that's a clean sheet, and is the first of the previews that I've found favorable. That gear setup looks so simple, clean, and functional. I'm hoping it's fairly easy to port and most of all complete so any conversion to other OSR/D&D games doesn't require coming up with my own lists of gear and encumbrance/bulk values.

Originally Posted by AMGhal Maraz

As much as PF remains the crunchy D&D, I must say the functional and clean tag terminology goes a long way to address the mechanical weight of the system.

Much, much better than the "natural language" approach of D&D 5 (which is a lighter ruleset, so it can certainly go with a less "gamist" language, but I'm one of those people to whom rules must be rules and background is a separate thing. Not that you can't have rules filled with background faithfulness, but rules, to me, must be clear, above anything else).

I'm a 5E stalwart through and through but I gotta agree here, too. I think one of the strengths of the Pathfinder team is that they've been dealing with such a heavy level of crunch that when they focus on paring it down, they do so with a critical, technical eye that makes the end result much better than some "natural language" dictum. Games are games, and especially in era of more and more convention gaming, gaming leagues, organized play, and streaming games, having a strong, clear ruleset to work from makes it easier for all of that to exist and share the same basis. (One of my pet peeves is turning on an actual play video to get an understanding of a game and being immediately greeted with all of their house rules and rules changes.)

I can't stand Wayne Reynolds, and, quite frankly, I can't understand why Paizo didn't choose to change its illustrator. It just doesn't make sense to me. If you want new players to your game, you gotta change not only the rules, but the whole visual ID.

I can't stand Wayne Reynolds, and, quite frankly, I can't understand why Paizo didn't choose to change its illustrator. It just doesn't make sense to me. If you want new players to your game, you gotta change not only the rules, but the whole visual ID.

Turns out we (and myself personally) really like Wayne as a person and love his art. And we are not alone. I've met many a new player who fell in love with Wayne's artwork due to Pathfinder. But, you know, opinions vary.

I can't stand Wayne Reynolds, and, quite frankly, I can't understand why Paizo didn't choose to change its illustrator. It just doesn't make sense to me. If you want new players to your game, you gotta change not only the rules, but the whole visual ID.

I disagree, Wayne Reynolds makes fantastic art and I'm glad he's still their main artist.

The flat check is just for it going out naturally, i.e without any player intervention. In the actual description for the Alchemist's Fire you can see you (or an ally) can end the damage with a single action.

Actually, what ISN'T listed there is that the "interact" to end the effect requires a roll also (I believe it was a DC15?):

Also, see the Glass Cannon Podcast's Playtest actual play games to get an example of someone failing for two turns in a row to get the fire out by spending all their actions each round through TERRIBLE rolls.

loving this, really like that Goblins are a core race and alchemist a core class. This looks really fun to play. its a clean easy to understand sheet. Still need to see how skills work but overall im pretty sold. Looking forward to the playtest.

Turns out we (and myself personally) really like Wayne as a person and love his art. And we are not alone. I've met many a new player who fell in love with Wayne's artwork due to Pathfinder. But, you know, opinions vary.

Stephen
Pathfinder RPG Senior Designer and map guy.

Well, since folks from Paizo are listening in, and we're talking about Wayne Reynolds....

Wayne Reynolds art (since I have no idea how he is as a person) is one of the primary reasons I held off buying Pathfinder books until you announced you weren't going to make hardbacks of PF1 anymore.

Now, I've seen Wayne's art outside of Pathfinder (in non-fantasy or other material where his usual style is unbecoming) and he's clearly a skilled artist. HOWEVER, from an art perspective, beyond the obvious stylization of his work, his work is almost universally busy to the point that in some work is is difficult to tell what I'm even looking at. There are gobs of unnecessary details that while indeed, an adventurer may actually be covered in all these little details, districts from the works themselves. And yes, there is clearly some stylization going on, there are also some obvious anatomy issues with many of his images.

Even though I LOVED 4E, and likewise loved the artist who did the vast majority of its art, the overwhelming singularity of the art was a turn-off. As it often is in PF1. One of the strengths of other games, not just D&D, is a diversity of art styles. It helps enable the reader to visualize the game on their terms, while utilizing a singular artist forces the reader to visualize the game on your terms. Both of these are perfectly valid marketing strategies, but at least in my case, I still have difficulty visualizing even my own characters when playing Pathfinder in a non-Wayne-Reynolds-style. Because of that, I find my desire to play PF1 much lower.

So sure, different strokes for different folks, but that's kinda my point. And quite literally, different strokes would attract different folks.

Good news, you space-faring fans of Starfinder: the STARFINDER ARMORY is here and it is stuffed to the gills with gear! There are new ways to frag, slag, burn, kill, maim, and otherwise cut a swath across the Core Worlds and beyond in this book, so let’s get cracking!

When WotC announced the Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron as a PDF release it caused a great disturbance as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in joy and frustration. The joy is because the most requested setting in the player surveys was finally being released for 5th Edition. The frustration is because it's not a physical book, it's not legal for D&D Adventurer's League and it said that Wayfinder's “will serve to collect feedback on adjusted races, dragon marks, new backgrounds and more,” making it seem like a beta release. By contrast, Curse of Strahd Ravenloft was presented as an adventure and source material.

Modern AGE is a tool box RPG with detailed rules for player characters but only a brief setting. There are enough adversaries and an adventure to get a GM started, but rules for customizing a setting are scarce. The rules are most comprehensive for a setting designed for the computer age.